Click above, for the essay on oilout, or scroll down for the one on public food trees and other food-shortage coping strategies. Copy freely for any purpose.
Discussing the world food shortage with a friend
The world foodoil crisis: what you can do
Stop press, 15 May 2008. The world staples crisis seems to be easing as, following good rains, record wheat harvests are expected in the USA, the main prodecer of wheat and aid food for the world, and here in Australia, another major producer. Also, food riots seem to be diminishing, so perhaps food is getting through in many countries, though it is difficult to tell. That is cold comfort if you are hungry now, but it does give millions of us the chance to start setting to to start feeding ourselves. Get those food tree in!
I was out in my own small citrus orchard yesterday, manuring, watering, weeding, cutting vines and dead branches. Trying to practise the preaching, sore back today, so now back here, tapping away.
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The real looming problems are oilout and its cousin foodout, not carbon pumped out
First a quick summary of the food side of the foodoil crisis, courtesy of Kenny Ashaka, Sunday Sun, Nigeria
Monday, May 5, 2008
"The UN Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO), reported that worldwide food costs rose almost 40 per cent in 2007 while grains spiked 42 per cent and dairy prices nearly 80 per cent. The World Bank said food prices are up by 83 per cent since 2005. As at December, it caused 37 countries to face food crisis and 20 to impose price control in response. It also affected aid agencies like the UN's World Food Programme (WFP). Because of soaring food and energy costs, it sent an urgent appeal to donors on March 20 to help fill a $500 million resource gap for its work.
Since then, food prices increased another 20 per cent and show no signs of scaling down. For the world's poor, like the people of Haiti, things are worse, people can't afford food, they scratch by any way they can, but many don't make it and they are starving."
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This is one crisis almost everyone on the planet can do something about, since we all eat food and, directly or indirectly, we all use oil. That is, you can do something if you want to.
Most social uproar starts when folk start going seriously hungry. When this new-fangled thing called agriculture breaks down, we revert to hunting and gathering - hunting and gathering other people's supplies and daughters, that is, see history. So unless we pull together, all hell could break out.
This one, being linked to clearly fast-dimishing oil stocks, could get really serious and as there is one world market for wheat, rice and oil, we are all in the same boat. As the price of oil rises, so does the price of fertilizer, of tractor fuel, and of the fuel for moving food by truck, by diesel train and by ship.
Even in such a rich place as California * (see footnote), they are restricting bulk purchases of flour and rice in the big supermarkets. So, not even living in the wealthy suburbs is perfect insulation. The cities all look more and more like giant mousetraps. Go rural, young man! Or you may involuntarily go west, in the rather blacker sense of that old phrase.
No good hoping the desk jockeys will solve this one. They can legislate, make speeches and shift subsidies around till they are blue in the face, the oil is not there in the ground. But the whole world is running on an oil economy.
If you trawl the internet for solutions, you will see that virtually every large institution or think tank manned by desk jockeys and conference tourists, is pushing for even more dependance by the rest of us on market agriculture.
This makes them the mouthpieces of what essentially started in about the 1790's or so in England, when the House of Commons, (curiously not Lords) started enclosing the common lands, to favour the rich, mainly sheep farmers. Twenty thousand pounds to the Hpuse of Commons (which rapidly vanished without trace) would get you permission to steal all the public land around your manor house, or whatyever, and to demolish the local village. Thht is why so many people emigrated from the British Isles between then and about 1840. The Scots were also forced out, mainly by the treachery of their own clan lairds, to eat seaweed, in many cases. Before that, the rural folk of Britain were the best fed in europe, after that, many in both the towns and the country lived (or died) on starvation rations. English literature, being the fantasy diaries of the winners, has been a bit vague on the detail, oddly.
The UN and all the rest are still backing market agriculture exclusively. It feeds most of us, sure, but not all. Some 850 million people are outside the cosy ring. This esdsay is about trying to start doing something about that stain on humanity's collective efforts to date.
Look to yourself for help. Time to grow your own sprouts, then veggies, and then put in food trees, particularly on public land. Take back the commons. Public food trees are not a new idea: Henry Thoreau, from his box in Walden Forest, was saying that in the mid nineteenth century. Probably a forerunner in ancient Sumeria was saying the same and the Druids very likely sneaked a few fruit trees into their sacred groves. Adam the First is reputed to have lived off food trees too, till he got into a demarcation dispute with his landlord. I am simply, like Thoreau, repeating the old message, though from a rather more luxurious box, my old caravan in a slowly-regenerating Australian sort-of-rainforest.
Then, with our food supply perfectly under control, to cope with the rest of oilout, maybe we can convert coal to oil, as South Africa has done for forty years or so. We still have truly huge coal reserves, trust me, I was once paid by a faraway government (with no particular axe to grind), to check the local coal reserves, by going through all the old waterbore logs, back tothe 1880's. The result surprised me. We have enough coal here in Queensland to pretty well restore the methane atmopsphere too its pristine condition. And the Chinese and Americans seeem to have much more than us. As it is very likely deep magnetic shifts at the earth's core-mantle boundary that are really driving cllimate change, not fossil fuel emissions, if we scrub hard, we may survive the fumes.
It is not really very relevant to this essay, that comment about the climate, but if you think I am raving re climate change, you are right, it is a favorite hobby. For backup to the geomagnetics claim and an extra laugh, see my other rant at http://www.freewebs.com/psravenscroft if you have nothing better to do. I would rather not distract you though, dear and scarce reader.
I got to this foodoil crisis by coming to think that on geological grounds alone, global warming was not particularly likely, was beyond our control if it did perversely happen, and that this lot is far more serious. The IPCC is choking to death on a diet of very poor science, and I wish them a speedy recovery, but I have other windmills to tilt at.
Here are the main suggestions:
1) Short term, try to diversify what you eat, away from rice, wheat and particularly grain-fed meat. Sorry, cowboy. Every non-staple-food mouthful, eaten anywhere in the world, increases the stock of grain that can go to those of us who are hungry or have few or no alternatives. That is a short-term partial solution, as if we keep it up for long, the replacement foods will take up wheat and rice fields. The gain from quitting grain-fed animals is permanent though, unless you are a grain-fed cow or pig or chicken or such. As a grain-fed hominid, it is difficult to find an abattoir that will take you, so you are probably OK.
2) Try grow your own food. Sprouts grow quickest, veggies next. Then tree food - fruit and nuts.
3) Go and help a farmer, if and when you can. Many are old folks and short of help. That is a far better use of your time than watching television. Go be a farmer, come to that.
4) Explain to the folk around you, that we all need, in this order; air to breathe, water to drink, food to eat and shelter so we don't freeze or dehydate and exit. All the rest - religion, nationalism, personal careers, wealth, fancy cars and clothing, etc., etc, is a bit trivial.
5) Drive and fly about less, and when you have to go, go the most fuel-efficient way. Walk. Sail. Paddle. Get a bike or a smaller car. If you absolutely must fly, fly by hydrogen balloon, or by hang-glider, or just flap your arms till you feel better. Avoid biofuels like the plague. At the moment, it's "we drive, they starve", as journo with a fine turn of phrase whose name escapes me, said a couple of days ago. Ethanol is in the unleaded petrol here in Australia too, now. Only premium unleaded here is free of it, and it costs a lot more.
6) As the food supply is currently looking a bit wobbly for about 850 million of us, all other personal, community or national priorities should take a back seat. Your local war or crusade or jihad may seem very important, but maybe it can wait. Just tell the enemy there is now a real problem on, and suggest they also go home and plant food. It could work wonders.
7) Your religious rituals likewise - most gods, spirit entities, paths of enlighenent and/or tree spirits are fairly tolerant of those who have to miss festivals or prayers or other time consuming devotions to avoid running out of food, as their priests or mediums like to eat too. Also, Kylie Minogue and the catwalks of Paris can probably get by without your admiration, for a day or two. As to religion overall, given the problem to hand, it does not particularly matter whether the universe is the work of an giant autistic numbat, the One True God, or a disinterested chemical belch. We can debate all that later. Right now we best all pull together, or the wheels may fall off the applecart.
Scroll down to see a map and two graphs that may help describe the problem. I could not persuade it to fit in here.
These tree-raising tips are a bit all over the place, am doing it as I go, will edit and keep adding.
Oddly, to help most in this food crisis, what is probably needed first is spreading the word, rather than direct doing. But unless you also get real, you may talk more nonsense than I do.
Unless you pick the right food trees for your locality, either they will not make it or you will be tending them steadily, until they are established. What is ideal is a plant-and- forget-till-bearing type of tree. Here, southern Queensland, the climate is subtropical but very variable; no two years have been the same in the twenty-thrree or so that I have been here. So what grows here will only maybe work where you are. Some places, of course, trees don't work at all, like the tops of most icecaps, glaciers and skyscapers. Humans should avoid those too.
Yesterday (about Mayday, that was, we were out planting the banks of a creek in kayaks. Clear blue winter sky, quiet river, lots of birds, no other people, ... you could not call it work. I had forgotten all the macadamia nuts, but we had a few bunyas to put in. Canoe planting is very pleasant, but walking along the roads is a lot more efficient.
Don't ask permission, just do it. Make sure that the locations don't make roads unsafe or block gates or obstructyt paths. Plant away from established trees as they will supress yours. Plant where slashers cannot drive and mowers cannot get, if they are used where you are. Occasionally, it does not hurt to plant just inside someone's fence, as long as it will not inconvenience them. Keep courtesy in mind always. Apart from being good manners, it might save your skin. Some folk get aggro, and nervous ones at times have guns.
You will need to work out what grows where you are. As well, keep an eye on the soil and the geology. Here, there is mainly poor soil, the rock being mostly overcooked mud, but there are small patches of very fertile basalt soil scattered about the district and the river flats aere fine ground also. The macadamias will grow anywhere, but like the red basalt soil best and produce bigger crops there. The bunya pines like wettish ground near rivers or creeks, or damp south-facing hill gullies, or being down near the tidal areas, but in slightly raised ground, of course. Bunyas take about 20 years to get a good crop on, but will feed people for about 200 years after that. Roughly every third year.
Probably the most efficient way to plant on public land is put the seed or nuts directly in the ground just after good rain. Cattle, donkeys, horses and goats pull out young trees, and donkeys chew the bark off mangoes till they flake out. But, if you put chicken wire around them, they mostly recover. Chickens and brush turkeys scartch away the soil from youg trees, one reason to plant seed directlywithout disturbing the soil too much, that way the birds often do not notice.
You don't always win. Yesterday I found a one-year-old bunya pine I had planted as a tree from a pot, next to a public road, stone dead. And in the last couple of weeks, the brush turkeys (the best way to imagine those is to picture a vegan vulture with a flaming red hairdo) have taken to digging around the bunyas. They never did this before, In fact, they were never here before about three years back, They will scratch up a kitchenm till no crockery remains. They now scratch out all the soil from around the bunyas in pots, and are now getting seriously into the growth economy thing, They are digging industriously around the roots of forty-foot trees. The first brush turkey I see studying chainsaws in a mail order catalogue, and they will find I am not a vegan.
I am a great fan of the jaboticaba, the Brazillian poor man's grape. It comes on a fine small tree, with fine round black fruit all along the branches, growing straight out of them. You get one good bite, tastes heavenly, then the bit around the pit is not so good. Spit out the skin, it is alsoi no great shakes. The trees are very productive but take about eight years to bear. They grow easily from the pips. The fruit freezes well, and then the bit around the pip tastes fine. We planted about six right next to each other, touching, and got a superb clump of trees. We now have about fifty coming on.
Around here, there are public mango, macadamia, mulberry, guava and bunya trees. Also endemic (locally evolved) sandpaper figs, along the creeks. The macadamia originated somewhere near here. The mangoes and macs were planted many years back along two of the roads near here, and the mulberries and guavas self-seed, or at least, the birds do it.
I tell you this last one in case you are now or soon get hungry. There are very many more minnows, an inch long, than large fish, and more by weight too, by a long way. They taste fine raw. I learned that from a Japanese airline hostess, who came to stay for a few days, years back. There never was a more elegant lady, so what are you bothered about?
Background
This website is not a front for anything except itself. It is simply here because of the mad urge folks often get to try and be useful. I have been growing food trees for about 20 years, and planting on public land for about five, in a sporadic way. We have had a lot of drought here, which is Closeburn, Queensland, Australia. You will not find it on a map unless you are lucky. It's about 40 kms NW of Brisbane, which is a small town no-one has ever heard of, about where the handle would be if Australia was a beer mug.
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A Garhwali song. Thanks to Rajiv Rawat in Boston, Massachusetts, and Peopleandplanet.net It is a Garhwali women's folk song from the state of Uttaranchal in the Indian Himalayas.
"From the dust of my body, may trees grow
Let people learn a lesson from trees
They give food to the hungry
Water to the thirsty
Shelter to the tired and homeless.
Let us learn to be selfless, grow more trees
And make the world a beautiful place."
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Email [email protected]
I will try get back, but this is an old computer, in an old caravan, and I lose the internet connection frequently. Last time the roof leaked onto the gadget and the ram chip gave up.
(* California is in north America, somewhere between Mexico and Canada. A good atlas will find it.)
Fuzzy map courtesy of Spiegel Online and the FAO
Paragraph.
